Nina Ryner Is Tying A Rainbow Around Yoga

If you find yourself in East London — Shoreditch, specifically –make time to better your mind and body through the color therapy of Chroma Yoga.

Nina Ryner’s vision of transporting her clients through a James Turrell-esque color/workout immersion is, to say the least, a sight to behold. Her Chroma Yoga philosophy combines light and colour therapy techniques, brain-stimulating soundscapes and bespoke natural scents to create a very unique, multi-sensory yoga experience. Below, Nina outlines for us her colour palette and how each can recalibrate a specific emotion, physical issue or state of mind.

Pink.

As a warm red tone, pink is a colour associated with love, affection and nurturing. Coupled with specially selected essential oils and sound frequencies, a pink class may invoke these feelings and guide us to a serene and relaxed state of mind, triggering the parasympathetic nervous system. It may also aid in losing subcutaneous fat and reducing cortisol levels, especially in the abdomen. This activation helps to mitigate the effects of the usual fight-or-flight stress response that can be damaging to your physiology and well-being. Slower movements cultivate space for a deeper experience of the poses and the breath.

A Pink class opens us up to new levels of self-exploration and contemplation by bringing awareness to the physical sensations, the thoughts or emotions that arise, or environmental sounds, creating a sanctuary for the mind and spirit, allowing you to take a deeper look at who you are.

Blue.

Blue represents a dynamic flowing class where breath is linked with movement and used to wake up the body and increase energy. Blue light is the all-mighty controller of our sleep cycles, and can help with boosting productivity and alleviating mood swings. These classes are great if you find it hard to wake up in the mornings or suffer from afternoon energy dips.

Advances in technology over the past 40 years have culminated in an influx of over exposure to blue light through laptops, smartphones, TVs and tablets. Prolonged exposure to tgusblue light has been scientifically proven to suppress the production of melatonin and subsequently interferes with our natural circadian rhythms. A lack of melatonin can contribute to a wealth of emotional and physical problems, from insomnia, anxiety, SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) and even cancer.

But this doesn’t mean that blue light is bad; we need simply to regulate those times to which we are exposed. It is especially beneficial in the winter when the days are shorter and greyer. Correct exposure to blue light can significantly help with the following:

Boosts productivity at work

Aids winter depression/SAD

Resets our biological clock

Reduces tiredness/sluggishness during the day

As such, each Blue ChromaYoga class is held at an optimum time of day. If you are exposed to a chronic amount of blue light (working night shifts, for example), try a Red or Orange class in the evenings to get your body’s melatonin production back on track.

Orange.

Our Orange classes provide the techniques needed to achieve a yoga practise which works best for your body. Here we use a very specific wavelength of Orange light — which exhibits very similar results to that of the deeper-penetrating red light — which provides the benefits of both.

Not only is orange light recommended for rebalancing your sleep cycle, it may stimulate the cognitive part of the brain, reduce anxiety and promote youthful, healthy skin by balancing collagen production. Its benefit to the skin, brain and muscles is thought to stem from its effects on mitochondrial energy production. Mitochondria are known as the powerhouses of our cells, taking fat, sugar and protein from our food, and combining them with oxygen to convert into energy.

This same mechanism is also responsible for many of the benefits of sunlight, which contains orange wavelengths as part of its spectrum. Some of its benefits are as follows:

Increases productivity and alertness

Reduces anxiety and stress

Promotes a healthy sleep cycle and aids insomnia

Soothes inflamed muscular tissue

Increases metabolism and accelerates weight loss

Promotes youthful, healthy skin by balancing collagen production

Corrects hormonal imbalances in both men and women

Chromatic.

This dynamic class incorporates circular movement — transitioning from the front to the back of the mat throughout the class. Deep stretching poses are used with twists and core stability to energise and strengthen.

The light in each Chromatic class moves through the spectral colours of sunrise or sunset, replicating the light upon which our body builds its natural circadian rhythms. Expect to finish on a burst of uplifting Blue light in the morning and melatonin-inducing Red light in the evening.

Circadian comes from the Latin ‘circa’, meaning ‘about’ and ‘dies’ meaning ‘day’. Therefore, a circadian rhythm is a repeating pattern based on the natural progression of night and day. The study of circadian rhythms is chronobiology; this time from the Greek ‘chronos’, meaning ‘time’, ‘bio’ meaning ‘life’ and ‘logos’ meaning ‘discourse’ or ‘thought’. An obvious example of a circadian rhythm? Our decision to sleep upon nightfall and to be active during the day. On one level it’s just the practical thing to do, given that most of us require illumination to function, so darkness serves us well as a time to rest. But there’s a chemical response going on as well.

The ideal environment in which to produce melatonin would be total darkness but, as we have evolved as social beings, it seems unrealistic to live a life solely by the rise and fall of the sun. Blue light is key to the suppression of melatonin, so an evening-hour compromise may be to use amber or red light to block Blue light frequencies. Red, Orange and Yellow light possess longer frequencies and show little to no impact on our bodies’ natural production of melatonin, thus allowing for us to go about our usual tasks without interfering with sleep cycles.

Red.

A strong, powerful, dynamic class based on the energy giving properties of red light. Focusing on strength, flexibility and core, Red provides the power to challenge yourself whilst benefiting from increased circulation, a faster metabolism and improved mood and sleep.

Red light interacts with the body by penetrating the first 2mm of skin tissue, allowing it to be absorbed and increase energy generation on a cellular level.

This same mechanism is also responsible for many of the benefits of sunlight, which contains red wavelengths as part of its spectrum:

Increases alertness

Promotes a healthy sleep cycle

Soothes inflamed muscular tissue

Reduces swelling and pain in joints

Increases metabolism and accelerates weight loss

Promotes youthful, healthy skin by balancing collagen production

Corrects hormonal imbalances in both men and women

Red light is absorbed by a protein in our mitochondria and is intricately involved in the final stages of respiration — producing energy, carbon dioxide and water.

Properly functioning mitochondria are essential for all functions of life and it is thought that red light removes an inhibitory/stress molecule called nitric oxide, therefore restoring the normal function of processing oxygen and converting it into energy. From this perspective, red light has an unique anti-stress effect and indirectly normalises energy production which enables our body to perform all of its normal functions optimally — from quicker cellular repair/healing to normalised collagen production.